


Don't Stand So Close to Me

by PunishedPyotr



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Flashbacks, Fridge Horror, Gaslighting, M/M, bipolar Liquid, child grooming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 21:23:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14269815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunishedPyotr/pseuds/PunishedPyotr
Summary: He wasn’t even sure what he was getting at here, anyway. Details from back then trickled in slowly and though Liquid tried to ignore them he was still aware that, so far as he remembered, there was honestly nothing strange going on, not for the kind of situation that he was in. He’d never assumed Ocelot was good with kids - or even knew much about them - so he didn’t find it surprising that Ocelot’s attempt to butter him up would have been… kind of awkward, in retrospect, Liquid supposed. Perfectly understandable.So why, then, was he so uncomfortable?





	Don't Stand So Close to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous commission~ don't yell at me~~
> 
> Title credit: The Police (lol)

_Eli didn’t think Ocelot_ really _thought he was_ that _stupid._

_Some of the other kids, sure. No, definitely. If Ocelot wanted information out of_ them _he could easily bribe them with extra food and sweets and looking the other way every so often. They’d probably even fall for the obnoxious veneer of false friendliness that Ocelot put on - not that Eli ever saw Ocelot pulling this shit on any of the other kids. Of course they probably didn’t know anything useful, and Ocelot would know that. Know that Eli kept his plans too close to his chest._

_At any rate, even if he had no intention whatsoever of opening up to Ocelot, and he was sure they both knew that, Eli wasn’t above accepting Ocelot’s little favors here and there. That sort of thing was all grown-ups were good for, after all — favors, getting suckered in to being nice and also being kept at arms’ length. Never trust an adult. Even if the adult in question sort of… treated Eli like one, a little, to be honest._

_It was hard to say how. Just seemed like Ocelot assumed Eli was on the same level of maturity as he was. Eli wasn’t about to disagree, even if that assumption also entailed Ocelot apparently thinking Eli was more comfortable being in contact with older folks than he actually was._

_But if the hand on his shoulder seemed to linger just a little too long, Eli didn’t really see it as a problem._

Liquid woke up.

He blinked, sat up, rubbed his eyes. Odd dream. Not that having dreams that were really just memories filtering back into his sleeping mind was all that unusual - it just normally entailed old ops, a prison camp, or the office purgatory of administrative paperwork, depending on what he’d been doing all day and how stressed he was about it. Something from all the way back in 1984, though…

And even then, if he did dream about that time almost twenty years ago he couldn’t recall another occasion when it hadn’t been related to dear old Sally, his father’s phantom, or both. Dramatic stuff. So, mundane interactions with Ocelot…? How strange…

Well, nothing to it. He couldn’t control what his brain decided to offer up for dreams so if it didn’t mean anything then it wasn’t his problem. Liquid decided to just ignore it and get up for the day.

…

FOXHOUND headquarters was in as close to the middle of nowhere as the Army could get it; civilian radio stations and cell networks didn’t reach out this far, dying in the last staticky flickers just outside the small town about a full hour away by car. The lack of cell networks didn’t mean anything to FOXHOUND, of course, but no matter how long Liquid had been stationed here he never really got over his irritation at being unable to use his little desk radio for anything other than collecting dust. How he wished he could tune in to some music station so that he could have some background noise other than the obnoxiously loud tick of the office clock while he worked… sometimes he’d turn it on just to let _static_ fill the air instead.

Today was one such day. And somebody passing by must have heard it (his door was ajar) and snitched, because mid-morning Ocelot came in (didn’t knock, of course, he never did) and without saying anything placed a tape player on his desk.

Liquid raised an eyebrow at it, then looked up at Ocelot. “What’s this?” he said, then immediately added before Ocelot could reply: “And don’t tell me ‘It’s a tape player’, Ocelot, I _gathered_ that.”

“I thought you might appreciate listening to something other than white noise,” Ocelot said, unruffled.

“Hm. I don’t have any tapes, you know.” The era of tapes was about a decade past, anyway.

“I know.” Ocelot pulled a double-sided tape out of his pocket and handed it to Liquid.

_Eli flipped the tape over skeptically. Looked like Ocelot had taken it directly out of his father’s library, or else he’d made a copy. Either way it was Eli’s now, but… “Why give this to me?” he asked, suspiciously._

_“I thought,” Ocelot said evenly, “having something to occupy your time might help to keep you out of trouble.”_

_So it was a purely practical concern, then. Eli figured._

_“Don’t tell anyone about this, though,” Ocelot told him. He seemed serious about it. He must have really taken it straight out of wherever Eli’s father kept his tapes, without permission too…_

_As tempting as it was to get Ocelot in trouble, Eli figured that if he ratted him out then he’d get the tape taken away. So he agreed to Ocelot’s conditions. Never mentioned the tape to anyone._

“Boss?”

“Hm?” Liquid blinked, startled, and hastily put the tape down on his desk. “What is it, Ocelot?”

Ocelot peered at him almost like he was concerned about something. “You got an odd look on your face just now.”

“Oh… it’s nothing. Just suddenly remembered something, that’s all.”

“Ah. I see.”

Ocelot left again without attempting to press, which was just as well because Liquid was sure even Ocelot of all people would have forgotten about such a minor incident and Liquid bringing it up now would make it seem like… like… well, Liquid wasn’t sure, but somehow felt it wouldn’t make him look good, to remember that.

Though he hadn’t really, at least not until now. Ocelot handing him a music tape had dislodged the memory from somewhere in his subconscious (didn’t they say the subconscious never forgot anything, in any detail?), but prior to that he wouldn’t have been able to recall it at all, even with Mantis’ help, he was sure. But he did think it was… _weird_ , the fact that he remembered it so suddenly and so vividly, spacing out in front of Ocelot as that little scene replayed in his head. Liquid might even have used the word “flashback” to describe it if he didn’t know full well what a _proper_ flashback entailed.

He chalked it up to the fact that he was still sort of pondering his dream last night. Ocelot being weirdly nice to him as a kid - even if it was just trying to butter him up for information, or bribe him to behave himself for Miller, or both - was just on his mind right now, so no wonder he was randomly remembering things in that vein. Perfectly normal, though he shouldn’t let it distract him of course. He picked Ocelot’s tape back and up and, after a little fiddling, got it playing on the tape player. He went back to work.

Liquid wasn’t paying too close attention to the music while he worked, but he eventually noticed that it was outdated, late eighties/early nineties stuff, and rolled his eyes. At least that explained why it was a _tape_ , well, more or less anyway. Ocelot’s age could excuse a late transition to CDs.

But by the time he was, from his estimation, just a couple tracks away from the end of the front side of the tape, Liquid realized that the song he was two minutes deep into was an early eighties one, one that had come out before he got picked up in Masa Village, that he’d heard on Mother Base somewhere before.

Just listening to it he could almost smell the salt air.

_Eli, of course, never intended nor wanted to actually_ get _comfortable with Ocelot. And that wasn’t to say that he_ did _— it was just that Ocelot was convenient to him. Convenient enough that Eli could occasionally get away with simply popping into Ocelot’s office and_ asking _for what he wanted. It really only worked with sweets or small trinkets, and if Eli wanted to eat or read or whatever Ocelot made him stay in his office while he did it, so that was annoying, but—_

_Somehow Eli got used to hanging out in there. Sometimes he’d even go hide there when Ocelot was elsewhere and Eli needed a break from everyone else on Base. He could get in alone, of course, Ocelot had given him a key, again on the provision that he not mention it to anyone. Because of course, Eli was sure that his father or at least Miller would consider it a security breach and get on Ocelot’s case about it, and more importantly take the key away from Eli and deprive him of his best hiding spot (or at least make it more difficult to get into). So again, he kept his mouth shut._

_But he thought, maybe he really was getting too used to Ocelot, or else everyone was thinking too much that the two of them were close, because it’d somehow gotten to the point that when Eli caused problems it was somehow_ Ocelot’s _responsibility instead of Miller’s, even though the latter was the one in charge of the kids for some reason._

_Eli got caught shouting at one of the other children, and it was Ocelot who grabbed him and dragged him away to lecture him alone, without anyone to take his side, and he didn’t let go of his arm until they’d turned the corner no matter how hard Eli tried to yank it away._

…

“It’s an odd thing to be preoccupied about, boss,” Mantis said.

“I’m well aware, Mantis,” Liquid said, agitated. “But at this point it’s just building on itself, the more things I randomly remember the more I get to thinking about it, and the more I think about it the more I start to remember things, and…”

“I’m afraid there is not anything I can do to help, unless you want me to just put you to sleep.”

“Oh, haha. Very funny.”

“Offer’s on the table, boss.”

Liquid glared at him sourly, crossing his arms. He was in no mood for jokes, even if it wasn’t really joke - more to the point, he didn’t think a forced nap would do anything to solve his little problem right now. “Look,” he said, “you’re the only other person here who was actually _there_ at that time. I just want to know if you ever thought anything was… well, unusual.”

Mantis shrugged, resting his chin on his hands. “You know what I was like back then, boss.”

“I’m wondering more about any conclusions you might have come to after the fact.”

“What, you think my time with Ocelot in the KGB would have provided any additional context that you are lacking?”

“Well, would it?”

Mantis paused for a moment, apparently considering it, then shook his head. “You thought back then that he was just trying to make you like him so that you would give him information. I don’t see how that was inaccurate.”

“Yes, but…”

“I would never say that Ocelot doesn’t have any ulterior motives, but you were _twelve_. I think in this case a cigar is just a cigar.”

“…I suppose you’re right,” Liquid said at length, then took a quiet sip of his tea, mulling it over. He wasn’t even sure what he was getting at here, anyway. Details from back then trickled in slowly and though Liquid tried to ignore them he was still aware that, so far as he remembered, there was honestly nothing strange going on, not for the kind of situation that he was in. He’d never assumed Ocelot was good with kids - or even knew much about them - so he didn’t find it surprising that Ocelot’s attempt to butter him up would have been… kind of awkward, in retrospect, Liquid supposed. Perfectly understandable.

So why, then, was he so uncomfortable?

Liquid sighed, putting down his cup. Seemed like Mantis was still thinking about it too, but with his gas mask it was a bit difficult to tell how he was feeling about it. Liquid did pick up on a vague sense of discomfort from him, but to be honest that was pretty normal whenever Ocelot was the subject of conversation, plus Liquid wasn’t sure he wasn’t just projecting here.

“I’d better get back to work,” Liquid said abruptly, standing up. “It’s just a waste of time to try to revisit things that happened almost twenty years ago - whatever Ocelot’s intentions were, it really, _really_ does not matter anymore.”

“That’s true,” Mantis said, but he said it dubiously.

…

_Of course he knew he could get in trouble if he were caught, but last he’d seen Ocelot was still doing drills with some newer recruits, so Eli would have his office all to himself for a little while. So that meant that now was the perfect time to search his desk. Ocelot was notorious was remembering a crazy amount of different things, and Eli was certain that that so-called ability was merely exaggeration and he really just had everything he needed to know written down somewhere. And, Eli figured, if he had it all written down then he’d need somewhere to keep it, and his desk seemed like the most accessible place._

_Eli didn’t particularly care about what else he might have written down, though maybe he’d keep it for leverage somehow, if it was something interesting. What he really wanted to know was if Ocelot or anyone else (mostly Ocelot, Eli was starting to worry that he’d been careless around him at some point, in some way) had cottoned on to Eli’s escape plan. Sahelanthropus was almost fixed, Dr. Emmerich still seemed pretty clueless, the time to go would soon be at hand._

_It wasn’t surprising at all that the drawers on the desk were locked, though. Eli had been anticipating this - he was prepared to pick the locks, he was just checking them all first_ just in case _one of them_ was _unlocked. (Though if it were him, then the unlocked desk drawer would have stuff like pens and notepads in it, not anything that would actually interest Eli.) (Actually, the top drawer was unlocked and had exactly that sort of thing in it, in addition to some hard candies, those little strawberry ones, that Eli pilfered a few of.)_

_Sucking on the hard candy and digging his lock-picks out of his pocket with one hand, Eli checked the last drawer - one on the bottom of the desk - with his other and found to his surprise that this one was unlocked too. Opening it he found a bunch of papers. Huh. Jackpot? Ocelot must have just forgotten to lock it…_

_He grabbed a couple papers and flipped through them, frowning. Didn’t look like important secrets Ocelot had jotted down to remember, just looked like boring financial reports and stuff like that, administrative bullshit about running Mother Base. Pretty much all of it went over Eli’s head. He put those papers aside and dug deeper, underneath the paperwork, and blinked when his glove got caught on a staple. A… magazine?_

_He tugged it out from under the papers, and his eyes went wide and he inadvertently swallowed his candy whole. He was holding in his hands - there was no question about it - a porno mag. Except that this one, instead of having a pretty woman with not much on on the cover like all the other ones he’d seen before, it was— a man. A grown-up man with a rugged face and defined muscles and he was only wearing his underwear._

_Eli shoved it back in the drawer as soon as he’d finished processing what he was looking at, glancing around the office in a panic. He got a funny feeling in his stomach, like he wasn’t supposed to be looking at that, and anyway it was distracting him from what he’d set out to do and it’d take a little while to pick all the locks on Ocelot’s desk and he only had a limited amount of time before Ocelot maybe came back to his office and..._

_Somehow, Eli ended up picking the magazine back up and flipping through it, biting his lip. The funny feeling in his stomach intensified, spread. He’d never seen a penis other than his own before, at least not this close and in this much detail, even if he was only looking at a photograph in a magazine. He felt his face heat up. Hesitantly, like the magazine could somehow bite him or something, Eli turned the page, his eyes growing even wider at the next scene: Two men, and they were both hard, and one of them was on his hands and knees and the other one looked almost like he was sticking his penis up the other’s-—_

_The door opened._

_Eli thought he was going to die right there._

_He scrambled to put the drawer back in order, and only just slammed it shut again and darted away from the desk, face still red, when Ocelot grabbed him by the wrist and prevented his escape. Eli snarled, struggling, terrified and humiliated that he’d been caught and knowing there was no real way to hide what he’d been doing - oh god, and the porn mag, too— Ocelot didn’t let go of him, instead grabbing his upper arms and forcing him back behind the desk again to sit in the only chair in the room._

_“Eli,” he said calmly, “what were doing?”_

_“N-Nothing! I wasn’t doing anything, let me go!”_

_“Really? Because it seems to me like I just caught you snooping through my desk.”_

_“I-I wasn’t!”_

_“Don’t lie to me, Eli.”_

_Eli squirmed. “I was just- er—“ he remembered the hard candies, and hastily pulled his handful of them back out of his pockets, showing them to Ocelot, hoping the weird way he felt like he could feel his heartbeat between his legs wasn’t visible to him. “I was just looking for s-something sweet to eat. See?”_

_“Oh, I see,” Ocelot said, but his tone of voice plainly said he didn’t believe him, and he conspicuously glanced down at the drawer Eli had just slammed shut. Eli followed his gaze, and grimaced. A corner of that stupid magazine had gotten caught, and it was visible, so…_

_“Ah. I thought I locked that drawer.”_

_Eli just wanted to leave. “I-I can’t believe you’d keep something like that in your desk!” he blurted out, some spastic attempt at a distraction. “It’s n-not like I wanted to see it or anything, I-“_

_“What’s the matter, Eli? If you didn’t want to see it, then you could have just put it back. Didn’t you?”_

_“…w-well…”_

_“Oh.” Ocelot frowned. Eli knew that sometimes smiles didn’t reach someone’s eyes, but he’d never seen a frown fail to reach someone’s eyes. “You were looking through it, weren’t you?”_

_“I… I…”_

_“You know that sort of thing really isn’t for someone your age. You’re too young.”_

_Eli successfully bit back a protest. He didn’t feel like it was_ fair _to be considered ‘too young’ for_ anything _, after everything he’d done, but maybe porn was different from war. Certainly he felt_  extremely _uncomfortable, it was just as well if he used his age as an excuse, wasn’t it?_

_Ocelot’s demeanour softened, and he stepped back, letting go of Eli. Eli made to escape, but Ocelot gestured for him to stay in the chair — Eli, nervous, obeyed, gripping the arms of Ocelot’s chair and looking up at him guiltily._

_“You aren’t in trouble,” Ocelot said._

_“Oh.”_

_“That sort of thing… it’s perfectly normal for a boy your age to be curious about it. If you ask me, there isn’t much harm in just looking.”_

_Awkwardly Eli pressed his legs together. He still had that funny feeling in his stomach, tight and low and hot, and somehow it made him doubt that he had been_ just looking _._

_Ocelot raised an eyebrow down at him. “Well,” he said at length, in a sort of tactful, diplomatic voice, “_ that _sort of thing is normal for a boy your age as well. Don’t worry about it, Eli. It’s natural, it happens to everyone, and it doesn’t matter at all that you were looking at men.”_

_“I’m not—“ Eli started, cut himself off._

_Ocelot gave him a reassuring smile. Eli's skin prickled. “You’re still young,” Ocelot said, “you have time to figure yourself out. And if you have any… questions, or need advice, I’m available.”_

_Right. Right, even Eli had heard the persistent rumor that Ocelot was a- well, that he preferred the company of the same sex. Evidently that was true. Okay._

_Eli nodded dumbly, and made to get up again. Ocelot let him go this time, and Eli wasted no time getting out of the office — though Ocelot called his name just as he was crossing the threshold outside. He jerked around, looking back at him. Ocelot was sitting casually on the corner of his desk, one ankle resting on the opposite knee._

_He raised one finger to his lips. “You won’t tell anyone about this conversation, will you, Eli? or what you found in my desk?” he said, his voice low, “it wouldn’t look good for either of us.”_

_“Of course I won’t tell,” Eli mumbled, and meant it, and, finally, he successfully fled._

Liquid stared up at the dark ceiling of his quarters, grimacing. Here at least there was a memory he understood _why_ he’d forgotten until now - something as awkward and embarrassing as that, no wonder he repressed it. Except…

Except looking back on it now, the vague discomfort he’d felt regarding his _other_ memories of how Ocelot had treated him back at Mother Base started to come into a clearer focus. Because looking back on that particular incident, the question occured to Liquid almost unbidden:

        Had Ocelot left that magazine where he could find it, on purpose, and set it all up specifically so that he could walk in on him?

_But why would he do that?_ Liquid asked himself, getting up, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep tonight anyway. _Seems pointless_. Except it didn’t, not really, and that was the problem - there was only one reason why he’d do something like that, though. That Liquid could think of anyway.

Miller had been FOXHOUND’s former drill instructor but had retired shortly before Liquid joined the unit (and rumor had it that he had retired _because_ he heard Liquid was going to be joining). So Liquid hadn’t directly seen him at all since 1984 but he’d still heard that back when Miller had worked here, he’d lived here, and he’d had a young daughter at the time. He could confirm that, really, considering it was about the only thing that explained why FOXHOUND’s library, tucked away in one of the breakrooms, included some abandoned parenting books down in a disused bottom corner of one of the shelves.

Liquid sat down next to the bookshelf, grabbed one, blew the dust off of it, and flipped through the book until he found the section **SIGNS OF CHILD GROOMING: What to Look Out For to Protect Your Child**. He skimmed past the first couple paragraphs about what sort of person to be wary of, relatives and family friends and sports coaches and teachers and anyone a child would trust implicitly, and read through the list of red-flag behaviors.

_Offering advice or understanding, giving gifts for little or no reason, giving the child attention_ , Liquid read. Check, check, and check, but that all seemed pretty reasonable. _Using their professional reputation or position to gain trust_ — like a teacher, Liquid supposed the book meant, but Ocelot had been, what, third-in-command at Diamond Dogs, so that probably counted. _Groomers will try to isolate the child from family or friends, and make the child dependant on them_. No… Liquid was isolated, sure, but he’d done that to himself. Even if Ocelot had intended to take advantage of that to further isolate him, Liquid was certain even now that he’d never been _dependant_ on the man.

_Groomers will convince the child to keep secrets as a way to maintain control over them. Often the groomer will start this process by having the child keep small, minor secrets, in order to gauge how willing they are to hide things_. Liquid blinked, remembering again the tape, the keys to Ocelot’s office, Ocelot telling him that “It wouldn’t look good for either of us.” He shook his head. He must be overthinking things.

_Groomers will go out of their way to arrange alone time with the child._ God knew Liquid had spent a lot of time alone with Ocelot in his office, but nothing had ever happened, they’d just shared a room while Liquid read and Ocelot did whatever it is he was supposed to do in his office. He’d never tried anything. Surely that pointed towards his innocence.  _Groomers will ignore social, emotional, and physical boundaries the child puts in place. They will insist on physical contact with the child even if the child resists, for example, unwanted hugging or tickling_. Or grabbing his arms or shoulders when trying to pull him off somewhere, or too-casual touches in some strange pantomime of reassurance?

_Groomers will often share age-inappropriate material with the child, or discuss age-inappropriate topics with them._ Liquid chewed on his thumbnail, not at all reassured by what he was reading despite his rationalizations. It seemed so much like this was exactly what Ocelot had been doing, but didn’t every incident have an alternate explanation? Just buttering him up for information, right? And maybe that magazine thing really had been an accident, and the conversation afterwards was just Ocelot handling it with as much grace as only Ocelot could…

He kept reading, now looking at the signs a child showed that they might be being groomed. _Withdrawn_ , yes, but that was only natural wasn’t it, _aggressive_ , of course, but he had to be that way to survive even before Ocelot came along, _anxious, clingy, depressed_ , the natural result of a huge change in scenery and social circle, _problems sleeping, unnecessary risk-taking, changes in eating habits, obsessive behavior, nightmares, self-harm, thoughts about suicide_ —-

Liquid threw the book across the room, snarling, then after a moment drew his knees up to his chest and rested his head in his arms, sitting back against the bookshelf. This didn’t prove anything, he told himself. This didn’t prove that back then he’d subconsciously realized that something had been going on and he’d been scared. All of those cute little personality traits could just as easily been explained away by the fact that he was a goddamned child soldier and nobody comes out of that fucking _normal_.

He was still left wondering what the hell would have happened if he hadn’t left Mother Base when he did.

“Boss?”

Liquid looked up. “Mantis,” he said, with some measure of relief. No point in asking him what he was doing up this late, it was just what Mantis did.

“You are worrying too much,” Mantis said.

Liquid laughed once. “Right,” he said, “of course I am. I’m- I’m really just making all of this up, aren’t I? It’s all in my head, that’s all…”

“…”

“Mantis?”

Mantis cocked his head slightly. “You aren’t making anything up or misremembering things,” he said, “I remember all of that too, it must have started after the incident when I joined you.”

“Oh,” Liquid said flatly.

There was a pause. Liquid stood up. Mantis seemed concerned, but unsure of how to approach this.

“Boss…” he said eventually, “suppose you’re right?”

“What the hell was Ocelot… planning…?”

“What are you going to do?”

“…”

Well, he was going to talk to Ocelot about it, apparently. Mantis didn’t comment on his decision.

…

In Liquid’s mind, confrontation was always the best option. He confronted Ocelot by calling him to his office, where no one else could see or overhear them. And he told him flatly what he remembered and what he suspected and his anxiety got the better of him and his voice broke as he asked Ocelot what he’d been planning to _do_ with him back then.

Ocelot stared blankly at him for a moment, then shook his head.

“Boss,” he said, “you’re off your meds again, aren’t you?”

“What?” Liquid said, standing up.

“You know you tend to blow things out of proportion when you’re having an episode.”

“What- I’m not— Mantis remembers all that _too_. I asked him.”

Ocelot rolled his eyes. “Oh, please,” he said, “you could convince yourself you were a teenage werewolf and Mantis would suddenly remember your pubescent howls at the moon. He’s hardly a reliable source here.”

“But-“

“This is a serious accusation, boss,” Ocelot said with a tired, insincere smile. “Now, I’m not offended that you suspect me like this, but I do want you think carefully about-“

“I am not off my meds!!” Liquid shouted, slamming his hands on the table. “I’m not having an episode, I—”

“Really? Then, you need to go visit the medical team and have your dose adjusted. Sometimes long-term medications can lose their efficacy, you know.”

“But I’m not-!”

Ocelot sighed. “You clearly are, boss. No one would ever mix up trying to bribe information out of you with _attempted child molestation_ \- unless, of course, that person were manic and, as I said, _blowing things completely out of proportion_.”

“I’m not manic,” Liquid protested, but… now he was uncertain. Maybe Ocelot had a point.

“I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary back then, boss.”

“But…”

“This was all nearly twenty years ago,” Ocelot said patiently, “don’t you think if I _had_ done anything inappropriate, you would have _realized_ it _before_ now?”

“I… that… maybe so.” Liquid looked down at his hands, balling them into fists against the surface of the desk, upset. He hadn’t been 100% sure, of course, but just being dismissed out of hand like this, he…

“You’re just confused, boss.”

“No, I… Ocelot…”

“Now come on,” Ocelot said, his voice infuriatingly sympathetic, “let’s just drop this whole subject. You’re going to look back on this when you’re feeling better and realize you were reading far too deep into things that didn’t warrant it at all.”

“I feel fine,” Liquid snapped.

“Of course you do. What time do you want me to tell the medical team to expect you?”

“…” Liquid sat down heavily. He could scream. “I’ll call them myself,” he said flatly, “get out of my office.”

Ocelot didn’t move. “The accusation, boss?”

“Get out.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me if you’re planning on pursuing this or not.”

“Fine!” Liquid shouted, pulling at his hair in frustration, “you weren’t fucking grooming me, I’m just having a- a manic episode and overthinking things, you didn’t do anything, I’m being ridiculous— is that what you want me to say, Ocelot?!”

“Perhaps not in as many words,” Ocelot said dryly, but he took his leave, leaving Liquid feeling oddly hollowed out.

Maybe Ocelot had a point, or maybe Ocelot was just lying through his teeth.

Liquid called the unit psychiatrist.


End file.
